“You shall hear. The massacre finished, we thought our turn come; but no, we were led back to our hut, and the next day the scene was enacted again, and this continued for eight days, until some five hundred corpses lay festering on the rocks.
“The mode of punishment was however varied; for the eighth day, some of the head men were reserved for death, and these men were pinioned and placed in narrow graves, where boiling water was slowly poured over them; many were poisoned, and every day the list of the condemned was read over and approved by the queen.
“The morning of the ninth day came, and we were brought forth, and conducted before the cabare or council to be judged. We were English, had come for a purpose; but we had disobeyed the queen’s command, and merited death. Satiated for the time with blood, the queen pardoned us, ordering us to leave the land. Mischief enough had been done, but it did not end here, for Maurice could not be kept quiet. Rising, he addressed the council, and he spoke the language fluently. He pointed out their errors, he exposed the fallacy of their doctrine; he grew eloquent and excited, and ended by denouncing the queen, and calling upon her head the just retribution her crimes merited. He was sentenced to death. We never saw him more; for that night we were marched towards the coast. It was the month of January, and that is the hottest month of the year in Madagascar; the deadly fever of the country ravaged the plains through which we marched, and I alone of those who pitched their tents under the trees that line the river yonder survived to tell the tale. Willis had already sailed for the Mauritius, completely foiled in his mission.”
“And your poor friend, Senhor,” asked Isabel; “did you never hear of him again?”
“Yes, through the agency of Monsieur Lambert, a resident in the island. There are,” continued the missionary, “three modes of death much practised at Madagascar. The one, by poison extracted from a tree, is called ‘tangui.’ This tree is so deadly that the birds avoid it, and the snakes will not go near. The poison consists of a small portion of the nut in powder. It kills in about an hour, and the agony endured is fearful. In ordinary cases it is used as an ordeal, and sometimes, when it induces vomiting, the person taking it gets better.
“The second mode is by throwing the condemned into a river where the caiman abound. If he is not devoured after the third immersion, he is allowed to go free.
“The third is by fastening the condemned to a rock bathed by the sea. If the waves, splashing up against the rocks, do not sprinkle any water on his body, the condemned is liberated; if a drop of water touches him, a dozen lances at once finish him.”
“The last seems to me the most merciful death, though all are horrible,” said Isabel.
“After we were violently separated from him, Maurice was kept guarded for twenty-four hours, without food of any kind, not even a drop of water being allowed him. His sufferings under that hot sun must have been terrible, but even then his faith was unshaken, and he made constant endeavours to convert his guards. His days and nights were passed in prayer. On the evening of the second day, he was taken to the ombachie’s hut. Here he met with the ‘sampi tanguine,’ or poisoner, and here life and liberty were offered him by the priest if he would publicly avow his errors and acknowledge their power. He was but a young man, and had lately married. He had left a wife, who was at that moment probably a mother, hoping to rejoin him. The temptation was strong, as the black poisoner stood before him with the deadly powder ready.”
“And did he yield?” eagerly asked Hughes.